A Night Of Careful Planning

We boated across town again to visit the orphanage that had so lately spawned the scion and visited the new abbess, Gerde. A shrine to the boy child was under construction and the Shallyan was clearly a huge fan, to the extent that she seemed to be favouring somewhat the cult of Sigmar over her own deity.

The local Sigmarite Priest. Helmut, had apparently proclaimed the child’s divinity and left with him a few days before. She painted a picture of an Angelic child, kept separate from others as a special case because of understandable jealousy.

The previous Abbess, now confined, had been a threat to the boy, as had mysterious visitors who had come seeking him out, first openly offering employment,* then after rebuttal resorting to violent kidnapping, only to be thwarted by the efforts of the sisters, the crowd and the boy himself.

*Possibly involving Wickes products

Our cynicism sharpened by the Gerde’s willingness to promote donations towards this new centre of pilgrimage, we decided to move on. Giz received a mysterious note at this juncture, entreating him to pursue the views of Maida, the displaced head of the institution, now locked in a cage suspended in the temple square.

We visited the area and noted the unfortunate woman, guarded by two watchmen, her cage the occasional target of passers by who enjoyed lobbing missiles, insults and general unpleasantness. She was gagged and her fingers were broken, which as witch hunters we could relate to as page one of the Confinement of Witches and other Spellcasters Guide* advises just such treatment for the suspect.

*Just Nine schillings 239 pence from all good book shops

She didn’t look like she’d be available for interrogation much longer. As witch hunters this was clearly an area we needed to clear up for ourselves, our sworn duty was to destroy this woman, or perhaps free her? A difficult concept for many of us, but in these suspicious circumstances…

We carefully hatched a plot at considerable length and equipped ourselves for a night raid. Giz forced his way into the shuttered and near tumble down abandoned temple of Sigmar for use as a hideout and in the dead of night between watch patrols we lowered the cage and broke it open, dragging its bedraggled victim across to the holy temple and safety.

A crude mannequin replaced her in the cage and was fired by the dwarf, a ruse that we hoped might buy us some time. Despite our efforts, healing and some sustenance, the former Abbess was clearly not long for this world.

Her story put a new slant on things; the child, Karl, had not been dropped on the doorstep on a night when a twin tailed comet blazed across the heavens as Gerde had claimed, it had been brought just seven years ago, as a baby, by witchhunter Osric Falconheim, a survivor from a cult destroyed in a righteous action conducted by him in the Cursed Marshes.

The orphan had a power that made anyone in his presence adore him, a powerful charm that disturbingly affected all he met. Maida had tried to get rid of the child, but Gerde had disobeyed, raising him secretly at the orphanage until the fateful day Helmet had proclaimed him scion.

The orphan she knew had no comet birthmark and clearly this story seemed to reinforce plausibly all the worst thoughts that found such natural homes in our suspicious minds. Of the fate or whereabouts of the witchfinder Osric, she knew nothing, and she demanded that we release her to a better existence as a final favour as she painfully concluded her tale of woe.

The dwarf quickly and if you ask me, a mite too enthusiastically obliged, and the Temple quickly became her tomb. Like her, the hue and cry raised by the conflagration in the cage seemed to have quickly died and no one troubled our refuge. We had the intelligence we sought* and needed to report back to the Lord General without delay.

*OK, maybe we didn’t have the intelligence we needed but we had the information required.